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While searching for some inspiration for a nail design on fashion websites, I noted a particular theme this season. Color blocking seems like it will never go out of style, but this year, it looks like brights are the go-to colors. I observed color-blocking on the runway last year this time and while the colors were bold and eye-catching, they weren’t nearly this bright.

Check out this lemon yellow Nanette Lepore dress. Now check out the model on her way off the runway in that bright coral dress with neon yellow accessories!!! LOVE!

From what I’ve been able to pick up, when color-blocking this spring, the key is to keep things bold and graphic kind of like these Guiseppe Zanotti patent sandals from Net-a-Porter.

If you’d like more inspiration and tips for color-blocking brights this spring: check out this slideshow (Bright Neon Clothing) and this slideshow (Color Block Pieces) from Refinery 29.com. I’ve also seen some really cute neon accessories at Target this season. I might have to go ahead and pick something up. 🙂

So I took a brief trip into the world of caviar nails in my last post, but for this one, I wanted to go all out. Again, I wanted to do something different than how people are now using craft microbeads to create interesting texture on nails. Why not call on my good old friend, the ombré color scheme?

My microbead collection is pretty limited but I was able to find 3 complimentary blues and 3 complimentary pinks to create this look. The base nail polish color under the pink nails is OPI Pink-ing Of You and OPI Fly (from the Nicki Minaj collection) is under the blue one. The texture is *weird* and I’ve already had a few people do double-takes then touch my nails. But hey, I gave up my personal space long ago when I started to put artwork on my nails. 🙂

Whew, these new nail trends seem to be coming out every day! Well the new-new nail trend is Caviar Nails. A UK nail company, Ciate, is now packaging tiny crafts pearls for usage in nail art design. A few friends/fellow nail enthusiasts brought this articleover on Madame Noire to my attention recently and I knew I had to find a way to make this concept my own. I already owned some of these tiny beads and I’d used them in an exploratory manicure just because I was so excited to get a package full of stones, rings, pearls etc. For this manicure, I decided to put more thought into the color scheme and incorporate the last new-new nail trend, the Outline/Border manicure. So here you go!

For this manicure, I layered China Glaze Midnight Mission and Tempest for my thumb, ring, and pinky fingers. For the pointer-outline/border nail, I used OPI Pompeii Purple (which is really more of a fuchsia, no?) and outlined it with gold glitter polish. On the middle-caviar nail, the base color is the same as the majority of my nails, but I affixed purple, pink and gold “caviar pearls” to it.

Judging by this pic currently on the Ciate site, it looks like you’ll need to use your own craft pearls (which can be found at Jo-Ann’s) for now if you’d like to try this manicure yourself. Hope you enjoy!

So, as I’ve started painting other people’s nails, I realize that most folks want you to make up designs on the fly. Some give a color scheme they’d like, some give a broad idea and some come with no inspiration at all. Since many of my own designs are inspired by things I observe and I give myself all the time in the world to complete them, it’s sort of tough to just make up something cute on the fly…and quickly! I mean, people who want their nails painted don’t have time for me to sit and ponder. I clearly need to put serious thought into how I’ll go about things when my nails are not the canvases. But…

I realized very few other types of designers or artists would be asked regularly to create original pieces of art on the spot with little to no prep or inspiration as fast as possible. I began to consider the types of artists that DO create art in this way and off the top of my head, I thought of caricature artists. Think on it for a bit: A person sits down in front of them and they’re expected to draw the person well and add a bit of flair to make it special…quickly! The quicker the better, actually, since there’s probably a line of people waiting who want the same quality and special flair. To add difficulty to the craft, many of these artists work in permanent marker or similar tools so they’ve GOT to get it right the first time. Oh, and there are people walking by looking over you shoulder judging your work as you go. Sheesh! I’ve got a new-found respect for caricature artists. I thought about how much practice, trial and error it must have taken for these illustrators to get good at sketching faces quickly while adding a personal touch. How can I make aspects of their technique work for my own creations….?

Right now, my designs are the result of quite a bit of thought and even some practice on my own nails or blank artificial nail “canvases”. So in order to become more like caricature artists, I gave myself a personal challenge: pick some random colors that you normally wouldn’t necessarily see together and create one funky nail design. But I promised myself that once I committed to doing a certain design on the nail that I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t “erase” and start over. So there’s the result!

Pop art-inspired manicures aren’t particularly new but I decided to dip my toes in the stream of this trend for my first manicure of the new year.

My New Year’s resolution for my blog: Include a picture of all the polishes I used in each manicure, kind of like how a more traditional artist might explain what media they decided to use for a masterpiece. You’ll find that at the end of each post from here on out…

Hey hey, here are pics from my first “client”! This nail fan offered a donation towards my nail polish obsession, *clears throat*, I mean hobby in exchange for two hands full of designs. Her only request: Use pink and purple. 10 little blank canvases, eh? The result is what you see above. I honestly didn’t keep track of what I used on which fingers…I just went with the flow. If you’ve been following my blog since the beginning (or have looked at my old posts), you may recognize the Purple Leopard print which was one of my first nail art designs posted on this site.

Now usually after I’ve done a manicure on myself, I’m too creatively-spent to think about doing another manicure for at least another day. But a couple hours later, I was working on my own nails…another free-flowing creative manicure using all sorts of blues.

Prepare yourself for an Introspective Artiste (ar-TEESTE) moment…

I’m beginning to realize that, unless I’ve been inspired by something I see or I give myself time to let the creativity bug work through me, it’s hard for me to do a manicure…hence the reduced frequency of my posts. When I was actively searching for inspiration (or drawing from the long list of suggestions I’ve gotten), I’d do 2-3 manicures per week. Now I wait for something to strike me…or I’ll take advantage of a free block of time to relax, let go and create. That translates to me doing my nails less frequently (once a week/maybe twice) but these creations seem better to me.

Enough artsy babble, check how much I’m *feeling* blue below, listen to some George Gershwin ‘Rhapsody In Blue’ and enjoy this two-fer post 😀

Welp, I’ll keep it short and sweet. TheEnamelista recently passed the 20,000 view mark and in thanks to you who visit my blog, I decided to do something different. Instead of a well thought out plan, I chose a color scheme (black and grey) took out a BUNCH of polish colors and nail art bottles and went with the flow. I’ve noticed a trend of having different designs on every finger so here’s my attempt. I think I need to just let the creativity flow freely more often. I hope you enjoy. 🙂

Alright folks, after trying OPI Shatter in Black and Silver I really didn’t have a strong desire to buy any of the first line of China Glaze Crackle Polishes. Then the China Glaze Crackle Metals came out…and I thought the Tarnished Gold Crackle deserved a place in my nail polish collection. So on a trip to Sally Beauty a few weeks ago, I picked it up…and forgot about it. But last night I remember it again! And I wanted to pit it against OPI Shatter in the same nail design. For this design, I wanted a bright summery base so I chose Sinful Colors Neon Melon, a color I thought was a fluorescent yellow when I bought it but really has some green undertones that reminds me a lot of China Glaze Electric Pineapple. I think I would best describe the color as that of a tennis ball. I then painted a single white line down the middle of each nail using my white Art Deco Nail Art Striper. Last, I painted China Glaze Crackle in Tarnished Gold on the left and OPI Silver Shatter on the right.

Now lets talk about smoothness of application…I did not find it easy with China Glaze at all. It was quite clumpy. Because of the thickness, it didn’t spread on the nail easily and it takes a much longer time for the crackling to get crackin’. OPI Shatter begins shattering moments after application but with the China Glaze, I left it on for severak minutes to allow the crackling to take place before applying a top coat. I wasn’t really a fan of that.

I think OPI Shatter wins the battle this time. I may try a couple drops of nail polish thinner in the China Glaze Crackle before using it for another manicure. Did any other nail divas struggle with China Glaze Crackle Metals?

P.S. Check out that morning light streaming into that top picture! Manicures look so much better in natural light.

Hello all! Today I went to the Detroit Tigers vs Seattle Mariners game at Comerica Park and to help root-root-root for the home team, I did this Detroit Tigers-baseball-theme manicure. On my thumb, index and middle fingers I painted 2 coats of OPI A Good Mandarin Is Hard To Find then painted the black tiger stripes with the Art Deco Nail Art Striper in black. On the ring finger, I painted 2 coats of OPI Dating A Royal then painted the classic Old English ‘D’ (found on Detroit Tigers’ uniforms, hats, etc) using the Art Deco Nail Art Striper in white. On my pinky, I painted 2 coats of China Glaze White on White then drew the baseball stitching with the Art Deco Nail Art Striper in red glitter. Sadly my beloved Tigers lost :-(, but I enjoyed the game! I hope you enjoyed your Sunday too. 😀

I went to my first Mani Party last weekend with a few fellow nail fans and it was fantastic! Desiree Mattox, chemist and expert in cosmetic science (envielabs.com), supplied us with a wonderful hand soak, scrub, and moisturizer. She even does custom cosmetics for your specific skin type and custom fragrances using all natural ingredients! Check out the link above!

After the hand and nail pampering, the polishing began! Check out all the fun designs below!

Contrast color ring finger with a J in rhinestones

Summer mani with polka-dotted ring fingers

French manicure with an alternative color scheme and Crackle on the thumbs